This article by Susan Seligson of BU Today provides the first reactions to CFA’s rendi tion of Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad. Here is a sample of description:

In this contemporary reimagining of The Odyssey, which the author adapted from her 2005 novella, the dead Penelope narrates her tale from a 21st-century Hades, in a state she describes as “liplessness, breastlessness.” Joined in the underworld by her 12 unfaithful handmaidens, who were hanged upon Odysseus’ return, Penelope recounts her teenage marriage, her desolate Trojan War decades, and the way she outfoxed a parade of suitors during the wanderings of her husband, whose story we all know well.

The production will play through March 2nd at the Calderwood Pavilion’s Wimberly Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts. For the full article and more information, visit http://bit.ly/XQlMl7

In this compelling article, Los Angeles Times Theater Critic McNulty discusses the controversial topic of violence in theater. Here is a sample:

What is the line between acceptable and unacceptable violence in art? If gruesomeness is the criterion, much of Jacobean drama would have to be banned, including Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” with its graphic scene of Gloucester’s eyes being mercilessly plucked out. Some may believe they can identify pornography at a glance, but violence places keener demands on our sensibilities. Its artistic validity isn’t a function of how many liters of blood are spilled or how many limbs are dismembered. The question is one of gratuitousness. Or to put it another way: How does the brutality fit into a work’s larger vision?